Pages

Friday, 17 June 2016

I spotted a recommendation (thanks Craig) for Me
And Earl And The Dying Girl (US) a while ago and decided to buy a copy. It’s been on my shelf since
and I took it down recently because I wanted something a little different to read. I guess I needed cheering up and this seemed to be the best
choice available.

I’m not typical of the intended audience (in fact, I’m about
as far from young adult as you can get), but I really enjoyed this tale.

There were a few hurdles to jump before I got into the swing
of things, mainly in adjusting to style, time and place, but it wasn’t hard. I was soon laughing at the bumbling nightmares
associated with teenage angst. Greg, the narrator and the Me of the title, is
particularly fun to follow as he twists and contorts his way of being to try
and fit in with everyone. He’s also terrible around women he finds attractive
and his clumsiness and pratfalls around them are a treat to read about.

Greg’s forced into linking up with an old friend of his by
his mum. The friend in question is Rachel and the reason she needs company is
that she is dying of leukaemia. His job is to cheer her up and help her fight,
but his qualifications for it are zero.

Enter Earl. Earl is Greg’s partner in the world of film-making.
They put together curious pieces to entertain themselves and to pay homage to
the off-the-wall films they like to watch. He joins in with the mission of
helping Rachel and their efforts form the central theme of the story.

The dying girl is a crucial ingredient to the tale yet, as
Greg points out, she’s not the centre piece. Greg is the main feature – he’s
far too selfish to be able to remove himself from the spotlight. That’s fair
enough given that he’s the narrator. It’s also important as it’s the journey towards the realisation that he’s been thinking about himself far too much in all this that
provides the core of the story.

The writing is broken down into small chunks. Jesse Andrews
takes frequent turn-offs from the freeway to delve into film scripts and
screenplay-like dialogue. This is refreshing and engaging and provided that
cheering up I was after.

I couldn’t buy into all the elements of this tale, but that’s
probably because I’m on the wrong side of middle-age. With a few exceptions
though, I’m glad I followed the recommendation I spotted. It’s funny, witty,
sometimes moving and hit the spot I needed it to when I began. Very pleasing.

Saturday, 4 June 2016

I picked up a copy of NYPD Red (US) out of curiosity. James
Patterson fills shelves in the library, bookstores and charity shops and he
also appears all over my Facebook page offering places on his writing courses.
The man clearly knows how to write and how to sell books and I thought it might
be a good idea to find out if I could learn anything from taking a peek inside
one of his novels.

NYPD Red is immediately gripping. A film script describes
the action of a murder in a posh New York hotel. The victim is a Hollywood
hotshot and the killing is carried out in exemplary fashion. The scenes move on to further killings to film
celebrities and has the LA set leaving the city in droves.

Enter our detectives. Zach and Kylie are thrown together to
solve this one. Zach’s a hard man who likes his yoga and his women and Kylie is
ambitious and tough and happens to be married to a film producer. The pair also
happen to have previous – a relationship that sparkled and fizzed and burned
out too quickly for Zach’s liking.

For the first third of the book, I forgot that I was trying
to learn anything. It zips by and each hook sank under my skin.

After a while, though, I began to disengage. The jumping from
one scene of tension to the next felt manipulative and the thrill lessened as
the outcomes became more predictable. The early pleasure derived from getting
to know the cats and the mice in the story slowly deflated as they became less
substantial and confined by their roles. Hitchcock’s adage about showing the
audience the bomb was taken literally and employed all the way along. The
explanations about why something would work and wouldn’t either telegraphed
what was coming or rounded things off in ways that felt unnecessary. I also found
that everyone in the book, with the exception of a few bit players, spoke in
pretty much the same way and the lack of variety became irksome. There was
still the odd surprise to keep my attention, but in the end I just wanted to
reach the resolution in a hurry.

My biggest issue with the book is that I didn’t really care
enough about anyone. The skill all seemed to have been focussed upon the drive
and energy of the action and the determination to keep the reader moving from
one chapter to the next without pausing for comfort breaks. To a point this is
successful. What I struggled with was that there didn’t seem to be anything
else to it. It’s like the swan analogy in reverse. You can see the legs kicking
like hell under the surface, but rarely get a sense of the grace and beauty of
the creature above the water.

I think I did learn something about my own work from this
read. On the one hand, I should probably ramp up that tension and create more
of an appetite in a reader where that’s appropriate. On the other, I should
continue to strive to create beating hearts for my characters otherwise the
action is just movement and pace.

My conclusion on NYPD Red goes something like this. If you’re
looking to escape or just relax and want something to distract the mind, this
is likely to serve you well. It’s probably a good holiday read, but it’s also a
big book. I don’t think it warrants all the space it would take in your
suitcase, but if you pack it in on your Kindle you could be in for a few hours
of entertaining fun.